Lying down on the deck with the blanket that Rock has stolen for the two of them, Fenrir cuddles with Rock and gives her plenty of belly rubs and head pats.

“We don’t get much time by ourselves, do we?” Fenrir asks Rock.

Rock ruffs and licks his hand.

“Hey, aren’t you getting kind of big? You were only like, a fourth of this size a couple of months ago.”

She bites his hand.

Fenrir retaliates by grabbing onto her snout and shaking it around. Their conversation turns into a wrestling match between her and his hand.

By the end of it, the skin from his fingers to halfway up his arm is covered in red marks thanks to her rocky teeth.

“How come you’re getting a fleshy-ish tongue, but your teeth are still like pure rock?” he asks her.

Rock ruffs and chomps onto his hand again, but rather than shake and play with it, she licks it.

He reaches his other hand up to her to playfully smack her side a few times.

“I wish I could take you into reality with me and cuddle with you there. Sleeping would be so much easier if I could sleep with you in my bed. Though, I don’t think I would ever want to get out of bed if I could do that,” Fenrir says.

Rock rolls onto her back to signify that she clearly has not yet received enough belly rubs.

“Alright, only a few more minutes and then I’ve really got to get to bed.” His hand returns to her belly once more. She’s still relatively blocky and definitely made out of rock, but the rock that consists of her belly is much smoother and warmer than the rest of her is.

Fenrir looks around and notices that Rod is nearby. “Hey, Rod,” he calls out to it.

The gem pulses once.

“Do you think that it’s possible to save the rest of those girls without getting anybody killed?” he asks it.

The gem pulses twice – no.

“Then do you think I just shouldn’t even try? If it means not putting lives at risk, would it be better to just let them stay captive?”

It pulses twice again.

“Yeah, I agree, but I have no idea what to do. Part of me thinks that I should just leave with Nehalennia to at least save her, but I don’t think we’d be able to make it far before Ull and that fleet of his would catch up with us.”

One pulse – it agrees.

“And to be honest, I really don’t want to miss the tournament. This is still a game, and I already got the rest of the crew looking forward to it, so it would be wrong to skip out on the tournament and to run away with her.”

One pulse.

“Do you want to actually participate in the tournament?”

Another single pulse.

“Yeah, I guess it’d be weird for a fishing rod to not want to be part of a fishing tournament. Also, uhh, sorry for being mean to you. I guess it makes sense that you wouldn’t have trusted me originally since I had negative Standing, and you apparently only like people with positive Standing. Just for the record, though, I only had negative Standing because we mercilessly killed a bunch of players in this guild that was led by some assholes who…” Fenrir explains the entire situation regarding Cassiel, that weird garlic guild, and Coastedge. “So yeah, it might have technically been evil or whatever, but they deserved it.”

Rod waits a few moments before pulsating a single time.

“Glad to know we’re on the same page now. I wish I could have let Serra try holding you when she still had really negative Standing. I guess blowing up a village isn’t good for that sort of thing. Anyways, I don’t suppose that you’ve got any plan where I can somehow save everybody in that prick’s ‘harem’ who needs saving while not putting any NPC lives at risk?”

Two pulses.

“Yeah, I figured as much. Anyways, I’m going to hop off of here now. See you tomorrow, Rod and Rock. Sorry for being so bad with naming as well.”

Fenrir gets two pulses from Rod and a lick on the face from Rock.

“Ready to wake, Saya.”

Fenrir returns to being just Ryouta.

“Hey, Fan,” Ryouta says to his eternally-spinning ceiling fan.

It continues spinning

“For some reason, I actually thought you’d reply somehow. Great, that game is going to make me think every inanimate object I own is somehow going to be able to talk back to me,” he talks to himself while slipping the headband of a headset off from around his head.

He gets out of bed, plugs it into his computer for it to charge since it’s been a week since the last time he has recharged it, and gets back into bed.

“Night, Fan.”

The fan spins.

Ryouta falls asleep, but his sleep is interrupted in only a few hours by the ringing of his phone.

He panics from the sound of his phone ringing since it’s been so long that he’s forgotten what his ringtone even sounds like!

Suddenly hearing a chorus of anime girls singing in Japanese is one hell of a way to wake up.

Now that he remembers what his ringtone sounds like, he realizes he should probably change it before taking his phone out into public again.

Ryouta gets out of bed as quickly as his weak legs let him to grab the phone left by his computer.

There are several dozen text messages and notifications from Fiscord. More importantly, the one calling him is Cassandra.

He answers the call. “Hey, what’s up?” he asks before yawning, his tired voice expressing that he just woke up.

“In-game. Now,” Cassandra orders before hanging up.

Ryouta’s heart sinks into his gut. Why’s she sound so pissed off at him? He tries thinking of anything that he has done which could possibly upset her, but nothing comes to mind.

He grabs his headset, gets back into bed, and immerses himself into Fantasy Tales Online.

“Somebooooodddyyyyy’s iiinnnn trooooouuuuubbbblllleeeeee,” Saya teases in a singsong tune.

Fenrir opens his eyes.

Cassiel is standing next to him with crossed arms and a very, very displeased expression. Serra is here as well but looks much less upset, instead… giving him a thumbs-up?

Fenrir looks around. He’s in his hammock, but why? He went to sleep on the deck.

And what’s this weight on top of him?

He looks down at his chest.

Nehalennia is cuddled up to him on top of his chest with the blanket over them.

Oh.

“I – I swear, I was logged out on the deck with Rock and Rod, and she was in the hammock by herself! A-and, shouldn’t you be more concerned, Serra?” Fenrir asks. He knows exactly how this looks, so for Serra to be giving him a thumbs-up is confusing.

“I trust you. I know you wouldn’t do anything. If you wanted to cheat on us you wouldn’t make it so obvious,” Serra explains.

“Tch. D-don’t defend him, I’m mad here…” Cassiel says, but she knows that Serra has a point.

Fenrir lifts Nehalennia up and crawls out from underneath her. She cuddles with the blanket as soon as he sets her back down into the hammock.

“You know he wouldn’t do that. I don’t know why you had to wake us up. I’m sleepy still,” Serra says, rubbing her eyes.

“She woke you up as well?” Fenrir asks.

Cassiel blushes and looks away.

“She woke me up, told me to come here, we looked at you, she got mad, woke to go and call you, then came back and started shouting while waiting for you to come on,” Serra explains.

“I – I… jumped to conclusions, okay?! How am I supposed to feel when I see my boyfriend cuddling with some other woman…” Cassiel explains herself.

Fenrir wraps his arms around Cassiel’s waist and places a kiss on her forehead. “Sorry that you were worried. I promise I logged out up on the deck exactly because I wanted to avoid any misunderstandings. I even turned down her kiss when she asked for one,” he explains.

Cassiel shoves him off of her. “Kiss? She asked for a kiss?” she questions him.

“She sounds like a new harem member,” Serra says.

“H-hey, this isn’t a harem,” Fenrir says.

Serra pouts. “You know what I mean. New love interest. When does she join?”

Fenrir joins Cassiel in looking jealous as they both look on at Serra.

“What? She’s cute,” Serra says.

“Serra, your power level is way too high,” Fenrir says.

Serra smiles, walks up to them, and hugs them before asking each one of them for a kiss. “I’m just joking, but I wouldn’t mind her joining us.”

“Hey, Serra, how many parents do you have?”

“Nine. Four moms, five dads. Lots of siblings.”

“That explains some things,” Fenrir says.

“Yeah, a lot of things,” Cassiel agrees.

Serra shrugs.